People often ask me how I
decide on my menus and frankly am not quite sure, all I know is that
there is a lot of inspiration out there and often I go with what
appeals to my imagination/taste buds which can be quite nerve raking
at times, if not foolish. I'm no longer able to just read a menu,
often I'll find myself dissecting it and trying to work out whether
it's something I can recreate or whether an item deserves a place on
my menu! The most bizarre place, I guess not that bizarre as it was a
book but bizarre as it is one of the saddest and most harrowing books
I have ever read with the most uplifting moment coming when all the
characters are harmoniously brought together by food, they were
making masala wada, an Indian “falafel” made with dhal, shredded
coconut, coriander, chillies and onions, with a mind boggling
result, I served it at the last dinner.

﻿

Masala Wada

Another example is when I
decided to take on the master of classic cooking, Raymond Blanc. I'd
just watched him prepare this amazing looking chocolate crumble tart
on TV and decided that that was exactly what I was going to make. I
managed to get hold of the recipe and to my delight there was a
hazelnut ice cream and the most delicious sounding caramel sauce to
accompany it, I didn't need any more persuading.

As I got to blanching and
caramelizing the hazelnuts, the smells that were unleashed on my
senses were enough to send me to heaven (my vision of it anyway), I
absolutely love hazelnuts as my breakfast bowl will attest. What is
it with smells? Like music, smells evoke all sorts of memories,
reactions and moods in people, am told men like perfume with a slight vanilla
scent to it as it reminds them of home/cooking, I feel another blog
coming on. I remember when I was a little girl our milk was delivered
by a farmer every day, straight from the cow so to speak and it was
up to us to keep it in the right conditions for it to last. The
things mum was able to conjure with that milk are incredible, see the
“Back
to My Roots” blog. Anyway, one day he failed
to deliver for some reason and my cousin and I undertook the mission
of going to collect it. On our way back, it started raining, now,
there is something about the smell when the rain drops first meet the African red soil that is just magical, so magical in fact that my
cousin literally lay down and licked the soil, I would have followed
suit but I wash my oranges before I peel them for juicing for
heaven's sake and it's not very me is it? ;-)

I digress, as I mentioned
before, I had decided to take on Raymond Blanc, the list of
ingredients involved was endless (I now own a useless 16 inch baking
ring as I bought the wrong one), the process so long that I actually
found myself churning ice cream at midnight (did I mention that I
have invested in an ice cream maker). By the time I'd finished
assembling everything it was almost midnight and I was shattered to
the tips of my hair so decided to take a bath whilst the ice cream
was churning as I didn't know how long it would take. I must have
fallen asleep as the next thing I heard was a loud thudding noise
which confused me at first but once my head cleared, I was able to
work out that the propeller could no longer go round as my ice cream
was at last ready. Of course I had to taste it, midnight or not and
it was utterly divine, needless to say it will be on the menu at some
point.

This is turning out to be
quite an interesting journey as I'm discovering more and more about
myself and appreciating my heritage more. As it turns out, my mum may
have cooked more than I first let on, oops, and my maternal
grandmother was a cook, she cooked for a local secondary girls'
school, is cooking hereditary I wonder? lol. I suppose most of this
was lost on me as I went to boarding school but my journey has
triggered some wonderful memories from childhood, such as the great
English baking books we had on the shelf with pictures of the most
amazing cakes I could only dream of, boy did I love reading those
books during my school holidays. I can't help feeling that perhaps
that is why it is easy for me to conjure a taste just by reading the
ingredients as I had to use my imagination a lot, I'd never heard of
most of the ingredients they talked about in those books, must ask
mum where they are!

Another wonderful memory
is that of what I'd term my first baking lesson with mum. We had a
gas cooker but as it was very expensive, we bought and I think they
still buy gas by the cylinder, gas cooking was reserved for when
we needed to make something quickly like when we had an impromptu
visitor, trust me that happens a lot in Africa especially around meal
times, or when we made roast chicken, come to think of it we did this
a lot on Sundays after Church, another great British export I
suppose. Anyway, mum had decided we we were going to bake a cake and
went on to improvise an ingenious oven. We took a very large pan and
filled it with sand and heated it on a charcoal stove called a “jiko”
for almost an hour or more then made a well in the middle of the
sand where we placed the cake tin with the mixture. We then covered
the pan with a tin lid and put more charcoal on top and viola, we had
an oven and actually baked a beautiful cake. I think I've seen Jamie
Oliver do something similar by digging a hole in the actual sand to
bake sea bass. Not sure how I had forgotten about this of all
incidents in my cooking life.

JIKO

Well, the journey
continues and I intend to push myself even more, after all, what is
the point of doing this if I don't better my skills. I'm amazed at my
ability so far as I have managed to tackle some complicated recipes
with astounding results, I guess I've always been as stubborn as a
mule when it comes to cooking. Once I put my mind to cooking
something I will do it. Macaroons are something I've always wanted to
make ever since my girlfriend and I spent many a Sunday afternoons at
Ladurée, this is before
everyone else started making “not so good versions” . I have
often been put off by the seemingly complicated process involved but
I woke up one morning determined to tackle them with outstanding
results to the delight of my friends ( including a Frenchie with “
Ladurée was just round
the corner from my flat in Paris you know”) and the guests to my
last supper as they adorned the goodie bags and will be making a
regular appearance as I play with different flavours.

Lemon Macaroons

I look forward to welcoming you to the
next supper on Saturday 19th May, please take a look at
the upcoming events to see more dates and planned menus. Don't worry
if a menu isn't up yet, it is bound to be decided way before the
event. Do also look out for the “singles” evenings that I have in
mind, very informal and chilled out affairs with good food and
hopefully good and interesting company.